In this series, we are continuing with the monthly current affairs for you. These are the Current Affairs for Agriculture for May 2021. Monthly current affairs are provided in a series of articles. These articles deal with the notes prepared through various resources including The Hindu, Indian Express, Downtoearth, and others.
Tussle around GM crops in India
- Genetically modified crops are plants used in agriculture, the DNA of which has been modified using genetic engineering methods. Plant genomes can be engineered by physical methods or by use of Agrobacterium for the delivery of sequences hosted in T-DNA binary vectors.
- Arguments for allowing it:
- Bangladesh Farmer adopted BT brinjal in 2018- The brinjal production increased 6 times and pesticide consumption reduced by 60%
- GM mustard should be allowed because India imports over 65% of the edible oil requirement.
- GM soybean and GM canola grown all over America.
- Arguments against it:
- Bioethical concerns around them
- Fear of the Unknown. “
Half hearted support to the farmers
- As per the data provided by various sources, there is a discrepancy in the number of farmers. Some of the claimed numbers are:
- Agriculture ministry (2016, 150 million),
- NABARD All India Rural Financial Inclusion Survey (2016, 100 million),
- Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PMKisan) Beneficiaries getting ₹6k/per year (2021:111 million enrolled).
- Unless there is a uniform definition and official statistics available, it is extremely difficult to make appropriate policies and targeted interventions to help the “Serious full time” farmers. This is also important to prevent farmer suicides and to double the farm income in India.
MSP and the conundrum
- In economics, utility is the satisfaction or benefit derived by consuming a product; thus the marginal utility of a good or service is the change in the utility from an increase in the consumption of that good or service.
- MSP & Adam Smith Value Paradox: Diamond is very expensive even though it is non-essential to human survival whereas water is cheap even though It is essential for human survival.
- Why so – If something is available in abundant supply then the marginal utility / satisfaction from “one more unit” will be less (e.g one extra bottle of water) than an item which is in short supply (e.g. extra biscuit of gold).
- Modern Similarities-
- 1970: Price of 1 kilogram of wheat = 1 litre of diesel now you require 4kg. (Green revolution has led to increased supply of grains + demand of the fuel has risen)
- 1970: price of 200 kg of wheat = price of 10 gm of gold. Today farmers will have to sell 2000 kg wheat to be able to buy 10 gm gold.
- There has been a rise in the nuisance of middlemen, inefficiency in the APMC market etc.
- How to tackle this?
- Instead of growing ONLY wheat the farmers should diversify- to multiple products fruits, veggies, milk, honey, silk, eggs, duck meat etc. There is a need for the rainbow revolution, rather than simply having a green revolution.
- Instead of guaranteeing a minimum support price (MSP) the government should guarantee minimum survival income to all full time farmers. This should also cover landless and tenant farmers. A special emphasis can be laid on women farmers.
IFFCO increases the price of non urea fertilizer
- IFFCO: Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative (Iffco), India’s largest fertilizer seller has increased the prices of non urea fertilizer by 50%.
- The reasons stated are
- Non-urea fertilizers = decontrolled prices so companies are free to change them as per business model.
- Input cost of ammonia sulphate Potash phosphate has risen.
Narmada canal: a crisis in making
- Narmada canal broke 100 times in last 2 yrs admits Gujarat govt in Vidhan Sabha.
- Reason for rupturing:
- Corruption: substandard quality of construction and maintenance
- Farmers illegally drilled holes in the canal to insert their own pipelines to steal water.
- Why is canal breaking bad?
- water logging leading to Harm to Flora Fauna
- crops are destroyed due to flooding, then the Same farmers demand compensation from the Govt. This creates additional burden on taxpayers.”
